Sarah Palin Thankfully Not On Same ‘Intellectual Stage’ As Obama

Fox News’ Juan Williams said Sunday that Sarah Palin “can’t stand on the intellectual stage” with President Obama. In his role as an analyst on Fox News Sunday, Williams was breaking down the Republican presidential field, which he saw as weak.

“There’s nobody out there, except for Sarah Palin, who can absolutely dominate the stage, and she can’t stand on the intellectual stage with Obama,” Williams said.

This opinion buys into the false idea that the far left is intellectually superior to the right. It also reminds me of something Ronald Reagan once said. “Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so.”

It has always been critical that those on the left stake out the intellectual high ground in any debate, it’s the only way they can make sense of arguments that make no sense. Take climate change as an example.

Watching an episode of 60 Minutes last night, a rare occasion I admit, which focused on animal migration in Africa, elephant ‘language’ and a closer examination of dinosaur bones, I was struck by the absolute distrust I had for what was being said. I thought back to my days in school, when science was focused on discovery, not on advancing a political agenda.

The world has slowly come to realize that too many of our scientists have been intellectually dishonest about climate change, even perpetrating fraud to advance the theory and this has destroyed the credibility of science in today’s world.

In addition, as I watched the episode, there was an ever present sense of intellectual superiority at play, just as we see on the left side of the political aisle. Listening to the ‘experts’ expand on various theories, some of which were really going out on a limb, such as the documentation of elephant ‘language’, the attitude was as if this were the first time that any real study had ever occurred.

As to be expected, though, the theories had no foundation. No basis on previous studies by others, no history. Sound familiar?

As for questioning Sarah Palin’s intelligence, this is a very familiar tactic that we saw play out with Ronald Reagan, a bachelor of arts graduate in economics-sociology from Eureka College, hardly an Ivy League school. It seems the left evaluates the content of your cranium by which school you attended and by your IQ score.

Which reminds me of Presidential Historian Michael Beschloss, who said, “Barack Obama has the highest IQ of any President.” When asked what Obama’s IQ was, he replied, “I don’t know”.

In his best selling memoir, Decision Points, George Bush talks about wanting to avoid being ‘book smart, sidewalk stupid’, which is a simplistic way to decribe far too many of the intellectual elite on the left. When evaluating Obama’s administration, one sees that he has the lowest percentage of staffers with free market experience, yet, we wonder why his administration is clueless on the economy? Does that sound like a practical application of Obama’s vast intelligence?

I submit that America has had enough of ‘leaders’ living in a bubble who are clueless about the real world in which most of us live. Regardless of the challenge we face, when examined closely, more often than not you will see that it’s the Ivy Leaguer’s who’ve gotten us into this mess by being consistently wrong.

Sarah Palin has practical, real world experience to go along with her impressive political skills. She’s run a family business, has real experience as an executive, which would benefit the current occupant of the White House, and she would offer far more than the political rhetoric he offers in understanding how her decisions effect everday Americans.

And keep in mind, many of those who disparage Sarah Palin’s intelligence are the very same who count Joe Biden, who’s dumb as a box of rocks, among the intellectual elite.

Does this mean Palin can defeat Obama? Considering the mind set of the average American who places style well above substance, maybe not. But we can hold on to the hope that the ‘sidewalk smart’ in this country re-stake their ground in 2012.